man at the hotel?"

"I believe he was to exist at the hotel--if he could--for twenty-four
hours," admitted Georgiana.

"But that man," objected Mr. James Stuart, "is a--why, he's--he doesn't
look like that sort at all."

"What sort, if you please?"

"The literary. He looks like a--well, I took him for a professional man
of some kind."

Georgiana laughed derisively. "Jimps! Isn't authorship a profession?"

"Well, I mean, you know, he doesn't look like an ink-slinger; he looks
like some sort of a doer. He hasn't that dreamy expression. He sees with
both eyes at once. In other words, he seems to be all there."

"Your idea of literary men is a disgrace to your education, Jimps. Think
of the author-soldiers and author-engineers--and author-Presidents of
the United States," she ended triumphantly.

"It doesn't matter," admitted Stuart. "The thing that does is that he's
coming here. I can't say that appeals to me. How in time did he come to
apply?" Georgiana told him briefly. Stuart looked gloomy. "That's all
right," he said, "as long as he confines himself to being company for
your father. But if he takes to being company for you--lookout!"

"Absurd! He's years older than I, and he said he would be working very
hard. I shall see nothing of him except at the table. Heavens! don't
grudge us anything that promises to relieve the monotony of our lives
even a little bit."

Stuart whistled. "Monotony, eh? In spite of all my visits? All right.
But I'd be just as well pleased if he wore skirts. And mind you--your
Uncle Jimps is coming over evenings just as often as and a little
oftener than if you didn't have this literary light burning on your
hearthstone. See?"

He went away, his thick fair hair, uncapped, shining in the morning
sunlight, his arm waving a friendly farewell back at the window, where a
white cloth flapped in reply.

"Dear old boy!" thought the young woman affectionately; "what should I
do without him?"

That afternoon, just before the supper hour, the boarder's trunk
arrived. It was borne upstairs by the village baggageman, complaining
bitterly of its weight. It was an aristocratic-looking trunk, and it
bore labels which indicated that it was a traveled trunk. Shortly
afterward the boarder himself appeared and was allowed to betake himself
at once to his room, from which he emerged at the call of the bell, and
came promptly down. Meeting Mr. Warne limping slowly through the hall,
he offered his arm,